Oil majors BP and Shell were among the fallers as the FTSE 100 Index slid by 171.80 points, or nearly 3%, to 5,641.03 yesterday.
Other leading indices around the world, including the German Dax, French Cac 40 and American Dow Jones exchanges, were also in the red after the US oil price plummeted below zero.
BP’s shares were down just over 3% at 293.15p, while Shell’s “A” and “B” stock fell by 2.46% to £13.10 and 4.24% to £12.88 respectively.
Among other London-listed North Sea firms, Cairn Energy slid 2.74% to 90.75p,
Premier Oil plunged 13.45% to 20.97p and Serica Energy was off 5.7% at 81.1p.
The Aberdeen-based engineering and consultancy giant Wood was 6.75% lower at 162.45p after revealing 66 redundancies in its UK operations, while fellow FTSE 250 firm Petrofac saw its shares shed more than 6% at 157.85p as energy service firms took a knock from lower oil prices.
Brent crude was more than 23.5% lower at $19.54 per barrel, as of 5.40pm, as the shock of the US benchmark for crude slumping to $40 below zero shook markets.